How do you know you’re middle-aged?

How do you know you’re middle-aged? How about when you wear clothes and shoes based on comfort rather than style, or grow hair in all the wrong places: nose, ears, eyebrows? Those are just two of the signs mentioned in a recent British survey about when middle age begins and how to identify it.

The 2,000 people surveyed by Benenden, a health care and insurance firm, also made clear that middle age was no longer something for 30- or 40-year-olds to worry about. The life change, they said, began at 53. In fact, nearly half of the older-than-50s who were surveyed said they personally had not experienced “middle age” yet.

“A variety of factors — including more active lifestyles and healthier living — mean that people find their attitudes towards getting older are changing. Over half of the people surveyed didn’t feel that there even was such a thing as ‘middle age’ anymore,” Paul Keenan, head of communications at Benenden Health, said in a statement when the survey was released in August.

“Being ‘old’ appears to be a state of mind rather than being a specific age,” he added. “People no longer see ‘middle age’ as a numerical milestone and don’t tend to think of themselves as ‘old’ as they hit their fifties and beyond. I’m 54 myself, with the mind-set of a 30-something — perhaps sometimes even that of a teenager!”

So beyond comfort shoes and ear hair, what are some signs that you’re no longer young? Here’s the full list offered up by respondents to the survey.

By comparison to those who participated in the British survey, Americans have a different take on when middle age begins, at least according to a paper published in 2011 by researchers at Florida State University. That study, which used nationally representative data collected in 1995-1996 and 2004-2006, showed that the perceived beginning of middle age varied, not surprisingly, depending on the age group that was providing the estimate. Overall, the researchers said, most people think of middle age as beginning at 44 and ending at 60.

“People’s views varied quite a lot,” associate professor of sociology Anne Barrett said. “Some people said at 25, some people said at age 75 or even 80.”

In addition, people with fewer economic resources tended to see middle age starting earlier in life, Barrett said, and both women and men view the beginning and end of middle age as occurring earlier for women than for men.